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REMINISCENCES OF BYEGONE DAYS. The " Ten Years' Conflict," which
ended in the disruption of the Church of Scotland, was not the only
battle for freedom which was fought during that decade. The popular
demands for "Free Trade," "The People's Charter," and "Complete
Suffrage," were urged with no less potency, and have practically
been conceded; for our trade is all but free, our suffrage is all
but "universal," while the vantage ground gained will enable the
true friends of liberty in due time to make it complete." The great
commotions of those days are but little known to the present
generation; but to some of us who were not only intimate with the
leaders of each movement, but had u share in their earlier, and
hitherto unchrouicled labours, they are yet felt as reminiscences
of peculiar interest, and worthy in some of their personal and
religious characteristics to be recalled. Richard Cobden, Joseph
Sturge, and Feargus O'Connor have passed away, but the fruit of
their labours remains, and bears evidence to their wisdom and
prudence, as well as their invincible power. As the apostle of free
trade, we knew Richard Cobden when he wrote his first article,
entitled, "Russia, by a Manchester Manufacturer," and gave it to
the commercial world in Tait's Magazine. We can call up the time
when John Bright gave indications of future greatness by his first
appearance as a speaker on temperance at Rochdale; and we were just
getting to know something of Joseph Sturge when, in the Council of
the Anti-Corn Law League, there was found to be a disposition to
accept an eight shilling bread duty. He stood up, and with his
usual quick, but intensely earnest eloquence, said, " a fixed duty
is a fixed injustice." The death- knell of the corn laws was heard
in those words, and he lived to see them ...